The 21st Century Poets aren’t Drunk enough ~ R.M. Engelhardt

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THE 21st CENTURY POETS
AREN’T DRUNK ENOUGH

The poets
Of the 21st century
Are still well, poets
A bit lost at times
But here & there & now
Recovering from other
Generations words
Vaulted within their
Minds & souls forever

The beat manifestos
Kerouac and Ginsberg
Still stuck in our heads as
Frost & Yeats voices
Keep playing in
The background &
As Whitman still
Yearns for an America
We’ve never seen

Never felt

We have technology
We have laptops we have
Our ecology falling apart
At the seams our oceans
Polluted and all our nations
Still divided hate and racism
& unconquered dreams
Running up that hill that
A young black girl mentioned

Recently

At some inauguration
On the collapse of some
Faux American Nazi regime

But there are still words
Verses yet to be written
& sung

As always

The poet of the 21st century
Never getting or fitting
The all & everything
Within an epiphany
Or a sonnet

Some of us even fell off
The back of the railroad car
Living as traveling punks
While others have seen the inside
Of the suburban prisons
Of their own intricate designs

Our philosophies
At best diluted amongst
The need for our own
Realities & God

Cigarettes &
Guns & Coffee

Meaning & Relevance

As we long for our own
Ancestoral forests
Worshipping animals, trees
& rock icons for gone is the
God of the harvest and all the
Poems of the starry night

Lord Byron & Shelly
Burned & buried long ago in their
Frock shirts
The romance at the end of
Their stories

Dead

So we write of our own times
Dancing upon these hardcore
Graves looking for the missing
Pieces of our childhood & the
Events of the moment

The news, the headlines.

No longer to dream or
Transcend without being
Drunk or stoned, medicated
Within the lines of something

Lost ~

For the poets
Of the 21st century
Are still well, poets
Searching
Here & there & now but still

Looking for that something
Looking for the perfect words
But never finding them in these
Drifting days of media

Writing

                 The Poet

Sees chaos.         Hears laughter

Posts randomly within

The vortex

          A photo
To see the dream

So others may see it also

        But do not

For the poet
Of the 21st century
Is not drunk enough
Will never be drunk enough

Commonly void by information

Random apocalypse

Floating

Somewhere

In the extinction of his own backyard

Ten likes

Five likes

None.

 

The 21st Century Poets
Aren’t Drunk Enough

T- Shirt now
Available

At Walmart

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~ R.M. Engelhardt

©2023

*title idea created by Jason Otero*